Hello, this is Mared Gwyn with another packed newsletter to start your Tuesday. Here in Brussels, it’s the last day of Cyprus’ rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, with the baton to be handed to Ireland tomorrow (more on that in tomorrow morning’s edition).
EU Commissioners head to Turkey: But first, three members of Ursula von der Leyen’s top team of Commissioners – enlargement chief Marta Kos, migration chief Magnus Brunner and foreign policy boss Kaja Kallas – are in Turkey today for talks with top government officials on advancing bilateral EU-Turkey relations.
A Commission spokesperson said the trip would be “an opportunity to review EU-Turkey relations, discuss the common challenges in an increasingly volatile geopolitical environment and also look for additional avenues for cooperation”.
All three will meet Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, in a sign that Brussels is increasingly recognising the geopolitical value of relations with the NATO ally, which will host a crunch NATO summit in Ankara on 7-8 July.
Yet it comes just two months after Commission President Ursula von der Leyen appeared to frame Turkey alongside Russia and China as a hostile power and geostrategic threat to the EU.
